


The Sound of the Waves as the Sun Sets

by KeybladeCryptography



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, Game: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Game: Kingdom Hearts II, Gen, None of the relationship tags are intended as shippy but read it however you want, This is titled "Naminé is very good" in my google docs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23054941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeybladeCryptography/pseuds/KeybladeCryptography
Summary: She draws another picture. People linked willingly by their hands, not forcibly by their hearts. Just another weird thought that can never become real.
Relationships: Kairi & Riku & Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé & Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé & Riku Replica (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé & Roxas (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé & Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	The Sound of the Waves as the Sun Sets

Naminé hums as she works.

It’s a barely-remembered lullaby, that Naminé doesn’t truly know herself. No one’s ever sung her a lullaby before. It’s just a sea-blunted and sun-faded remnant she found swirling around in Kairi’s earliest memories, behind the veil of fog that protects her. For now. The lyrics are lost, they’ve been long since carried away by the tide and buried in the sand of the ocean floor, but the melody remains, no matter how hard the pouring island rain or a little girl’s sorrow beats down on it. Music is meant to be shared, and Kairi taught it to Sora and Riku, the first charm she ever gave them.

Naminé would have liked to teach her Riku, the replica, and kept the cycle going, but he’s gone now, drowned in the dark, cold nothingness he emerged from. She’d like to give it to Roxas and Xion too, the only song they’ll ever know, but DiZ won’t allow it, won’t allow her anywhere near them so they don’t band against him. He doesn’t want to be betrayed again. The other Riku, the only one caught up in this who can call himself real, and yet stands on the edge of sacrificing that, acts like that ribbon around his eyes keeps his hands tied. Maybe it does. Or maybe it just keeps him from seeing how wrong this is.

In any case, Naminé doesn’t blame him. She doesn’t blame anyone, although it’s occurred to her that maybe she should. Maybe she should blame DiZ for holding her hostage, blame Riku and Mickey for their ignorance or desperation, blame the Organization for using her, blame Sora for stabbing himself with a keyblade and bringing her into non-existence in the first place.

Unlike Roxas, she’s filled with memories. She’s stolen simple emotions, like the sadness Sora felt when Riku started going to school without him and Riku’s anger when his father threw away the pile of rags that once was his favorite stuffed animal, and examined complex ones like Kairi’s frustration with being left behind. But she’s also filled with bittersweet memories of love and loss, every time Riku’s stayed up for hours on end watching Sora sleep in the pod, how Kairi keeps returning to the cave drawing of the boy she can no longer recognize. Of fear and relief, coming face to face with Riku in Traverse Town and seeing Kairi, asleep but alive in Neverland. She’s woven those memories and feelings together and tried to tear them apart and she knows how powerful they can be.

If she were to blame anyone, she’d probably blame herself. That’s all she’s been taught to do.

She’s not devoid of fault. She could have tried to run, racing blindly down the steps of Castle Oblivion and out the door into the world beyond, but she remembered the fear of death, the desire for the potential and possibility and hope of being alive. She could have stayed still, played her part, and earned a new name and a number, but she remembered the suffocation of being trapped, the longing for freedom that burns like a fever. (Even so, in the small notepad Riku gave her, safe from DiZ’s prying eyes, she’s written out “XV, Irixka, Witch” in flowing cursive.) Hell, she could try to run right now, while Riku’s telling Xion everything he needs her to hear and DiZ is downstairs setting up the datascape, just in case. She could open a corridor, even without the coat to protect her from the darkness and find a world far away from here where no one could ever find her.

Maybe she could break the window and grasp a shard of glass, a weapon of her very own and kill Sora in his sleep. Try to break the chain he holds that binds her to him. Worry about the consequences later.

Except, she can’t. She knows something no one else does, that probably wouldn’t change a thing. She has more than memories. She has the beginnings of her own sea glass heart and it is and always will be connected to Sora’s. Such bonds are not so easily severed.

She draws another picture. People linked willingly by their hands, not forcibly by their hearts. Just another weird thought that can never become real.

She crumples up the paper as Riku arrives in a splash of darkness that stains the white room. It’s not what she’s supposed to be working on, though he’s never one to scold her. “Xion found the right answer,” he says, clenching his fists, head down, already defeated. No matter what DiZ would have them believe, there is no right answer here. 

“I see,” Naminé says.

“She’s going to come here.”

Naminé turns to look at him. It’s not as painful to do so as it used to be. The longer hair helps, as does the ribbon. She doesn’t think she could bear to look him in the eye. “DiZ isn’t going to like that.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t have to sift through his heart to know that he’s apologizing for everything. Tomorrow, he’s leaving, possibly for good. She’ll have to make up the difference and be strong enough to deal with DiZ herself, because he’s lord of the castle now but she thinks she can do it this time. She has to. “I forgive you,” she says, because she doesn’t want to see him hurting, and it’s not just because of the replica or the memories she’s touched anymore.

“No you don’t,” Riku says. He’s not wrong. “And I don’t blame you.”

“I don’t blame you either.” She needs him to hear that.

:”Thanks. You’ll tell Xion what I want you to tell her, right?”

“Yes.”

“Before I go,” Riku starts, and his hand hovers over her shoulder, unsure of whether he’d startle her if he were to touch. She nods, and he places his hand down and it makes her feel a little more real, a little more human. She was reading one of DiZ’s old scientific reports after he’d gone to sleep the other day, an old study on how touch starvation affects the body and the heart. “How about I get you out of here and we do something fun?”

Naminé tilts her head, then quickly straightens it once she remembers that’s something Sora would do. “Like what?”

“Want to taste that ice cream you keep seeing?”

Naminé smiles, small and controlled, not Sora-like at all, but genuine just the same and nods. Riku smiles back at her and in her mind’s eye she can see it without the ribbon, which is just as well because he smiles with his eyes. “I’d love to.”

She doesn’t know if it’s because Riku has his own doubts, or just because he feels that it would be rude, but he doesn’t point out her use of the world “love”. He offers her his hand and she takes it, gripping for balance. The room spins slightly. She’s been sitting working most of the day. Most of her life. It takes her legs a minute to adjust to supporting her weight, light though she may be. Riku moves to drape his coat over her, because she doesn’t have one of her own and she shakes her head. He probably needs it more than she does.

The darkness stings, but her heart isn’t whole enough to worry. Probably. 

The warm hazy hues of Twilight Town proper are darker than she’s used to, but far more pleasant and her eyes are quick to adjust. Riku leaves his coat in front of the corridor and offers his arm in case she needs it. She’s able to get through the sandlot herself, albeit slowly and far from gracefully. She takes him up on his offer to get uphill, but she can manage the Tram Common. It’s late, but not as late as she expected it to be. The streets aren’t busy, but they aren’t entirely empty and none of the local businesses are closed just yet, though they will be soon. They won’t have to break into the ice cream stand. 

Riku offers munny to the cashier and hands her an ice cream bar. She tears at the wrapper without a second’s hesitation and takes a big bite that makes her teeth hurt and her brain freeze. Riku laughs at her wide eyes though he tries to cover it up with his hand. It might be the first time she’s heard the Riku of the present, the Riku who exists outside of memory laugh since the first day they met in Castle Oblivion. She switches the ice cream to her left hand to punch him in the shoulder, like Kairi would to him and Sora when they were getting in trouble. He looks at her, with her right hand on her hip and blue ice cream dripping down her chin and only laughs harder.

“Come on,” he says, once he regains his composure. “I want to show you something.”

Naminé follows him, licking at her ice cream. It’ll last longer that way, assuming she can keep up with it melting. It’s good, so she thinks she’ll manage. They arrive at another hill and Naminé takes his arm again, swinging her head around to take in the sights while trying to keep her balance. It leads up to the station, and Twilight Town’s crowning jewel: the clock tower. Axel, Roxas, and Xion aren’t up there today. “I’m not climbing up there,” Naminé says.

“That’s fine.” Riku sits on the wall surrounding the area and Naminé sits beside him. He waves his unopened ice cream bar. “Want mine?”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” He hands it to her and she starts on it the moment she’s finished off the first. The doors of the station open and students involved in club activities and commuters working late in Sunset Terrace spill out, having just gotten off the last train. Naminé studies the students’ school uniforms and imagines herself wearing one. She’ll draw it later, if she has the time. Riku watches them too and she starts remembering his school, his classroom and classmates and teachers. She knows that his favorite subject was history, that his favorite teacher was Maechen in the sixth grade, and that he hated group projects.

“Is school fun?”

Riku shrugs. “Depends on who you ask. Sora would say so, but he also complains about every class except phys. ed.”

He doesn’t usually talk about Sora much, so she risks asking, “What about Kairi?”

He smiles and Naminé lets out the breath she was holding. “Yeah, she thinks it’s fun. She likes people and she’s smart, too. She’s a year younger than me and she still helps me study for math tests.”

“And you?”

He holds his hand out, palm facing down, and shakes it. “I don’t really care for it. I don’t get to have class with Sora and Kairi and making new friends has always been their thing, not mine. But I guess . . . I guess these days, I kind of miss it.”

Naminé hums and they sit in silence until all the people are gone and she’s finished her ice cream. She lets Riku help her downhill, because it’s kind of steep and her muscles aren’t that experienced negotiating with gravity, and he drops her back off in the Old Mansion. DiZ is none the wiser. “Goodbye,” he says.

Naminé shakes her head. “No, not goodbye. Not so long as our hearts are linked.”

Riku doesn’t question her and she wonders if by saying that she’s just made his job harder, just made him feel worse. But he nods, like he knew all along. “Right. See you soon then, Naminé.”

“See you soon, Riku.” She lets herself believe it as the room returns to white. She reaches for her sketchpad and after a few strokes of colored pencil she decides she’d look good in a Twilight Town school uniform. She wonders if having access to Kairi’s memory would make her good at math. (Fourteen minus five equals nine and the number keeps dropping.)

Riku’s only been gone a day before Xion comes. It’s sooner than Naminé expected. For a minute, she’s seized by jealousy. Jealous that Xion can move freely, that she can stand without shaking, that she has something to lose. Xion takes off her hood and Naminé sees the determination in her eyes and the straight line of her mouth and the jealousy fades. “Nice to meet you, Xion.” Naminé says. And it is, kind of, because Naminé’s been wanting to meet her, but not like this, not under these circumstances. Except, how else could they meet?

Xion sits across from her. “Nice to meet you too, Naminé.”

Naminé wishes she would have come closer. She wants to stand up and walk over to her, to take Xion’s hands and invite her to have this conversation over ice cream, or better yet, not at all, but she can’t. Her legs still hurt from the last time. She’s been thinking about it for a day, but she needed more time, she isn’t sure how to start. As she tries to think of what to say, she hums, sharing like Kairi did. It puts both her and Xion as at ease as they can be.

“Naminé, are you able to . . . see my face?” Xion asks. Naminé stops humming but she continues the song, fingers drumming against her lap. 

“Yes.” More than a face, Naminé sees a person, one who had to fight with all her strength to become one. Xion doesn’t pick up on that. How could she?

“Then what do you think I should do?”

It’s only an illusion of choice, everything’s already been decided for the both of them, but Naminé asks her something she’s always wanted to be asked herself. “What do you want to do?”

It takes her a moment, the question catches her off guard, but Xion doesn’t need to think very long. If someone asked Naminé, she’d probably ponder for days. “At first, I just wanted to be with Roxas and Axel forever. But then I started to realize that my memories . . . Well, these aren’t even really mine, are they?”

Naminé shakes her head and taps a little harder, a little faster than the song is meant to go. Not all of them, not even most of them, but Xion’s memories of seashells and sunsets are all her own. Besides, Naminé’s not any better. “You’re not Sora, and you’re not Roxas.” She almost says, “You’re your own person, we both are, would you like to run away with me?” but that’s not what Riku or DiZ or anyone wants her to say, so instead she says, “You’re Kairi as Sora remembers her.”

Xion leans forward and there’s a renewed intensity in her expression. Naminé has to admit, it does resemble Kairi, and yet there’s some element that belongs to Xion alone. The sorrowful strength of one who has only ever known battle. “As I remember more of my past, the more I feel the need to go back where I came from . . .” To go home, as if either of them really have one. “What should I do . . . to go back?”

“So you’re going back to Sora?” Naminé asks. She already knows what the answer will be. “If you return your memories to him, then you will disappear.” She shakes her head. Xion shouldn’t have to disappear, shouldn’t have to sacrifice the little bit of happiness she holds in the life she’s created for herself and Naminé shouldn’t have to be sitting here right now, but here they are. “In exchange for not having your own memory, you’re connected through other’s memories. So when you disappear, no one will remember you. There won’t be any ‘you’ to remember.” But that’s not entirely true, is it? There will always be an echo, the emptiness of a missing puzzle piece, a broken link in the chain. “For all the powers that I possess,” the ones that have always done more harm than good, “I can’t keep even one piece of the memory called ‘you’ connected.”

Naminé looks up again and Xion says, “I know, I’m ready. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I also know that Roxas should be going back with me.” But should he? “But . . . I don’t think he would understand. Not yet.”

“I know. Roxas can’t feel Sora just yet . . .” But he will, soon, whether he wants to or not.

“Naminé, will you please watch over Roxas once I’m gone? You won’t be alone, I asked someone else too.” She smiles for the first time since she’s gotten here and what little of a heart Naminé has nearly breaks. Xion has a beautiful smile. “There just isn’t anything else I can do.” That powerlessness . . . Naminé knows it well. If nothing else, she can try to ease the ache.

“All right,” Naminé says. It’ll probably end up being a lie.

“Thank you . . .”

Naminé sighs. Even if she were to unravel it all, to go against Riku and DiZ, nothing she could say would change Xion’s mind. It’s all too late now. Has been from the beginning. “Well, if you’re ready, let’s go see Sora.” She places her hands against the table to help support her weight and starts to rise when DiZ arrives, scolding her again.

“I can handle this!” Xion says and she runs. Naminé could never hope to catch up.

Naminé stands anyway, even though it won’t do any good. “Wait! Xion . . .” Xion doesn’t wait. So her disappearance will be violent, then. 

Naminé wishes she were surprised. As Xion left though, Naminé could hear her humming.

Naminé wishes she were surprised when Riku shows up wearing another’s face, carrying Roxas over his shoulder. She only catches a glimpse of him. She’s not allowed in the computer room, and that’s where he and DiZ and Riku spend all their time. She thinks Riku’s avoiding her. Avoidance always has been a bad habit of his.

Even though she’s not allowed in the computer room, what does she have to lose? She watches, as someone who looks like her but isn’t, a copy, a tool speaks to Roxas. She always wanted to do that herself, so she does.

“Roxas. Nobodies like us are only half a person.” But that’s only the beginning, isn’t it? Every day, she feels more independent, more complete. She wouldn’t be here right now if she didn’t. It occurs to her, suddenly, that everything she was told and everything she thought she knew was wrong. “You won’t disappear.” He won’t, he can’t. Even if his borrowed body fades, his heart will persist. She can feel it, it’s connected to hers. Someday, even if it’s too late for her to fix this, Sora will. “You’ll be whole!”

“No further outbursts,” DiZ says, and the grip of his hand around her thin wrist is painful. She bites the hand that covers her mouth and that startles him enough to let her move it. He keeps grabbing, keeps trying to silence her, but she won’t allow it. Not before she can tell Roxas the truth and make him a promise.

DiZ pulls again, hard, and she stumbles back into the darkness with him, but that’s fine. He shoves her and raises a hand, but Naminé doesn’t cower anymore. She and Riku reach for his wrist at the same time. DiZ turns away. “Take her upstairs,” he says, but Naminé’s already marching up on her own. DiZ will be in a bad mood for a few days, at least, but Naminé doesn’t regret it.

Nothing she could have said or done could have kept Roxas from fading or Sora from waking up. It must have been destiny. Now she’ll just have to place her trust in Sora. For now, her work is finally done. 

“Go,” Riku says.

She does, humming so Axel can hear as she walks away.

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyy it's been a while since I've done the writing thing, I missed it. I can be found on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CrepusculeChaos), where I lurk like the Lingering Will instead of posting anything. Thanks for reading!


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